


14 - A Christmas Carol

by Kat_Lovegood



Series: Professor Layton Advent Calendar [14]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Advent Calendar, Advent Calendar Drabble, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Lovegood/pseuds/Kat_Lovegood
Summary: A glimpse into a very happy Christmas past.
Relationships: Desmond Sycamore & Desmond Sycamore's Daughter, Desmond Sycamore/Desmond Sycamore's Wife
Series: Professor Layton Advent Calendar [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557985
Kudos: 6





	14 - A Christmas Carol

**Author's Note:**

> So... it's been ten days since I last posted, and I'm really very sorry that I didn't manage to put everything up in time. Sadly one deadline has been chasing the other in these past few weeks and compared with the added stress (but, you know, good stress) that comes with Christmas - gift buying, baking cookies, trips to the Christmas market etc. - I did not really have the time or energy to work on this. Now that uni had gone on break and I am finally home again, I will try and post the remaining chapters now. Hopefully, I will finish until the beginning of the new year. Again, I really regret that you could not really use this as an advent calendar after all, but maybe someone will find this in 2020 and will have fun with it? 
> 
> Anyway, have fun with the story ;)

The lights were dimmed down and the house smelled of cinnamon and oranges. In the large living room that had been slowly but steadily turned into a library by its inhabitants, a large Christmas tree stood high and tall in a corner, currently being decorated.

„There you go, Lizzie. Put it right onto the top!“, Desmond said as he lifted the eight-year-old girl up in the air so that she could place the largest golden star on top of the tree. 

The young girl giggled as she did so, her face beaming with delight as they had finally put the last piece of decoration up. Their Christmas tree looked strange, that much was sure, being decorated by little vases of clay that resembled archaeological artefacts – her mother had painted those – and little, mechanic birds that moved up and down – the work of Lizzie‘s father – and all the little decorations Lizzie had crafted herself through the years. There were some rather tattered pieces of cardboard decorated with her little fingerprints back from when she was a little toddler, and some stars she had recently crocheted at school. All in all, it was a chaotic mess, Lizzie thought. But it was also very beautiful, somehow, and nothing said Christmas quite like their own special Christmas tree, and the smell of Raymond‘s freshly baked cookies.

As if on cue, their butler made his way into the room, a tray of the baked goods in hand. Raymond had worked for her grandmother before, but after she had died three years ago, he had come to live with the Sycamore‘s instead, and now Lizzie couldn‘t imagine how they had ever managed without him. She was sure that their little house had definitely not been as neat and organized when she was little as it was now. Her mother, Alice, was never good at keeping things organized – probably because she had grown up in a home with a butler, Lizzie deduced. Though she was, of course, rather sure that she would do better when she grew up. Lizzie‘s father, on the other hand, could keep order – unless he was really engrossed in something else, which he usually was. Then he made a terrible mess out of things, until he couldn‘t find anything anymore and had to stop what he was doing to clean everything up perfectly, just to repeat the cycle again. It was a mystery to Lizzie how her father could be so chaotic and organized at the same time.

She would laugh at him when he lost his glasses again, something that happened at least once a week. He didn‘t seem to notice, and Lizzie sometimes wondered why her father needed glasses in the first place. But she was happy regardless whenever she could point out that he had pushed them up to his forehead, or put into his pocket, and then her mother would call her father a muddle-headed professor, and her dad would scowl in mock hurt for a while, but never for long.

„So, young Miss, what sort of cookie do you want?“, Raymond asked her as he put the plate down on the table.   
„All of them!“, the little girl answered with a happy laugh before proceeding to take one of the fortune cookies, that were not filled with silly prophecies but rather little puzzles. They weren‘t especially tasty, but her favourite regardless. 

„What did the Christmas tree say to the Christmas stocking?“, she read from the little piece of paper that had been contained in the cookie, before rolling her big, brown eyes. „Dad, those are supposed to be puzzles, not some stupid jokes!“, she complained, before she had even read the answer, playfully crossing her arms and faking a scowl.

„She‘s right, dear, those are reserved for the Christmas crackers“, her mother laughed before giving her husband a kiss. „Now then, who wants to start with reading „A Christmas Carol“?“, she said, with a twinkle in her eye, and soon enough the four of them sat around the coffee table, taking turns telling the old story. It was a Christmas tradition, and they would do so every year on the night before Christmas. Lizzie had sworn herself that she wouldn‘t fall asleep before the end this time, and so she listened attentively while her father started to read.

„Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put...“

Lizzie had another cookie in her mouth and a hot cup of cocoa in her hand and the flames in the fireplace danced as she listened to the story. She was happy and warm and would soon drift to sleep, dreaming of all the Christmasses yet to come.


End file.
